A Penguin survey of more than 6,000 smartphone users found 61.3 percent of the bike-on-demand service app users will travel less than 3,000 meters or 3 kilometers per ride, and 62.9 percent of the users will mainly commute from bus stations or subway stations to their destinations.

Of those surveyed, 48.7 percent said they would like to have more short trips using shared bicycles, and almost 60 percent accepted shared bikes as a better choice for travelling.

As more people choose to share bikes, they are encountering problems. Sometimes, there aren't adequate number of bikes available to rent. But in the long run, shared bikes will prove environmentally friendly, according to the survey report of Penguin.

Known as the "Kingdom of Bicycles" in the 1980s, China has grown to be the world's largest auto market. Now, bike sharing is expected to make bicycle-riding fashionable again. What's more, venture capital firms have funded startups providing bike-sharing services.

Since 2016, the Beijing-based Mobike, which is known for its distinctive GPS-equipped bikes, has landed several rounds of financing, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. And it has partnered with Foxconn Technology Group to double its annual bicycle production capacity to more than 10 million units.

Its record is not unique, as its rival ofo raised 3.1 million yuan ($450 million) in its latest round of funding in early March, which gave it a valuation of more than $1 billion.

Zhang Xu, analyst at Beijing-based internet consultancy Analysys, predicted that the bike-sharing sector would see a shakeout by the end of this year and mergers, or some sort of consolidation or rationalization of existing players, may ensue in early 2018.